[Dawn] Unknown assailants fired several rockets near Afghanistan's Kandahar airport on Tuesday while a Pakistain International Airlines (PIA) plane was on the tarmac ready for departure, DawnNews reported. The flight PK-199, with 42 passengers on board, was ready to depart for Quetta when eight to 10 rockets were fired from multiple sides close to the airport.

[Shabelle] South Sudanese police has juggedKeep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! a large number of Somali expats living in the capital city of Juba, according to Somali residents living there.

The Somalis detained are reported to be 23 persons and South Sudanese police force surrounded a house where these Somalis were living before taking them into custody.

The police later 15 of the 23 persons tossed in the calabooseDrop the rod and step away witcher hands up! after there were not found of any break of the law.

The Somali embassy in Jubba is now trying to help the detained Somali get their freedom back. It is reported that the police suspect those Somalis were planning illegal activities against the security.

A large of Somali expats live and have businesses in the newly independent state of South Sudan and Somalia has a diplomatic mission there.

[CSMONITOR] A four-month investigation is reportedly turning up links between Al Qaeda groups and the Sept. 11 attacks on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. But as Libyan Sherlocks fall prey to harm, concerns rise that the probe may be derailed.

[MAGHAREBIA] Ansar al-Din on Monday (January 7th) launched an assault on a Malian army unit in Savare, 600km southwest of Gao, ANI reported. The armed Islamists were led by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) chiefs, according to al-Akhbar.

They fighters sought to take control of the Mopti airport, which reportedly could serve as a rear base for African forces.

[An Nahar] A French court handed down an eight-year jail term on Tuesday to a Turkish-Dutch man for criminal masterminding a group that had funded the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).

The Gay Paree court also permanently banned Irfan Demirtas, 53, from La Belle France, where he had been held since shortly after his 2008 Dutch arrest on charges of financing terrorism.

Eight others enjuggedYez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! for belonging to the group, which had sent tens of thousands of euros to the IMU, received various sentences of up to three years in jail. A 10th co-defendant was acquitted.

Prosecutors said the La Belle France-based network sent at least 300,000 euros ($390,000) to the volatile border between Pakistain and Afghanistan, where the IMU is said to be active. They said 170,000 euros of that sum was earmarked for jihad.

Set up in the late 1990s, the IMU is listed as a terrorist group by the United States. According to the U.N., some of its leaders have held top positions in al-Qaeda.

[An Nahar] India accused Pakistain of killing two of its soldiers in a "ghastly" attack Tuesday and mutilating one of the bodies along the tense disputed border between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid said India would deliver a "proportionate response" to the killings in Kashmire which he said were designed to sabotage an already fragile grinding of the peace processor.

The Pak military meanwhile rejected what it called Indian "propaganda" that it said was aimed at diverting attention after a cross-border exchange at the weekend in which a Pak soldier was killed.

The two Indian soldiers died after a firefight broke out around noon as a patrol moving in foggy conditions discovered Pak troops about half a kilometer (1,600 feet) inside Indian territory, an army front man said.

A ceasefire has been in place along the Line of Control that divides the countries since 2003, but it is periodically violated by both sides.

"There was a firefight with Pak troops," army front man Rajesh Kalia told AFP from the mountainous Himalayan region, confirming the names of the men as sergeants Hemraj Singh and Sudhakar Singh.

"We lost two soldiers and one of them has been badly mutilated," he added, declining to give more details on the injuries.

"The intruders were regular (Pak) soldiers and they were 400-500 meters (1,300-1,600 feet) inside our territory," he said of the clash in Mendhar sector, 173 kilometers (107 miles) west by road from the city of Jammu.

Indian reports and a military source speaking to AFP indicated that the mutilated soldier may have been decapitated, but further investigations and a post-mortum were required to confirm this.

Speaking on Indian television, Khurshid described the killings as "inhuman" and "not the way civilized people deal with each other".

"We need to do something about this and we will, but it has to be done after careful consideration of all the details in consultation with the defense ministry," Khurshid told the NDTV news channel.

"It is absolutely unacceptable, ghastly, and really, really terrible and extremely short-sighted by their part," he added, promising that the response would be "proportionate".

"This seems like a clear attempt to derail the dialogue," he added. "We have to find ways in which the dialogue is not sabotaged or destroyed."

We are all getting to know the Islamic religion for what it really is. In Bangladesh in 1971 the Paks killed 3 million people ( civilians mostly, unarmed civilians ) in eight months. You have to really WORK to kill that kind of numbers in that amount of time. 250,000 rapes...but then, Moslems are like that.

#7
Actually, mutilation and overkill is a pre-civilization savage thing. There are photos from Little Big Horn of US soldiers with dozens of arrows in them -- most probably shot into them postmortem. Some of the more strenuous Pacific Islanders would use the club they had dashed someone's brains out to completely crush the corpse of their defeated enemy, cut a slit in it, then wear it as a cape.

#10
As saird before, a China-vs-Japan shooting war = military conflict over the Daoyu/Senkaku Islands in the ECS can devol into an East Asia-wide war, to includ in South, Central Asia as IMO "post-US", future World #1 wannabe China will attempt to permanently resolve strategic access issues in various but differentiated hotspots.

AN NEW SINO-INDIAN WAR OVER PAKISTAN "FITS THE BILL" AS DESCRIBED ABOVE, + WILL BE JUST ONE OF SEVERAL ASIA-WIDE + INTERNATIONAL BATTLEFRONTS FOR CHINA + PLA.

In NE Asia + South China Sea China wants unchallenged access into WESTPAC + SOPAC vee the pro-US or moderate, anti-China"First Island Chain" - in West + SW Asia, China's goal will be to permamently settle the Trilateral = China-India-Pakistan dispute in the Himalyas to its favor + to ensure Chinese domination vee the US in the Strait of Malaccas + East Indian Ocean trade.

The good news here for India is that China's #1 mil priority is the conquest or subornment of TAIWAN in NE ASIA for PLA purposes.

IN CHINA'S VIEW, WIDOUT CONTROL OF TAIWAN THERE WILL BE NO "WORLD#1 CHINA" AT OR BEFORE YEAR
2050, OR BEFORE THE END OF THIS FIRST CENTURY OF THE NEW MILLENIUM. China subjectively will have to wait until sometime in the next century [2100-2200] to achieve its "post-US", "Manifest Destiny", which to China is ANATHEMA.

* CHINA DAILY, GLOBAL TIMES, FREEREREPUBLIC, TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > ARTICs = new Chinese Academy of Sciences Report denotes that at current rates China's economy will be larger than that of the World #1 US starting in 2019, + that China's international or geopol status will finally exceed that of the US in 2049.

[Dawn] Three copperswere maimed in a grenade attack on their van while patrolling the area on Swabi-Mardan road near Al-Falah link road on Tuesday.

All injured were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital Swabi.

The unknown attackers fled from the scene after the attack taking advantage of the low visibility conditions in the area.

In an unrelated incident the slaughtered body of a Sikh man was found in Chora area of Jamrud Tehsil in Khyber tribal region. The killers left a chit on the body claiming that the victim was killed due to his involvement in spying activities for the banned religious outfit, Lashkar-e-Islam.

The dear departed was a resident of Bara and a practitioner of herbal medicine, who was kidnapped a few days earlier from Tirah valley in Khyber tribal region's Bara Tehsil.

Beautiful Downtown Peshawar...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire., the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central..., situated between Khyber and Orakzai Agency... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers... is home to the largest Sikh population in the country.

[Dawn] Sources in the Interior Ministry said that a phone call made by a close associate of Hakimullah Mehsud planning an attack on the January 14 long march was intercepted, DawnNews reported.

Sources said that during the phone call, Mehsud's companion is heard asking another Taliban member for a car which would be used in a planned attack on Tehrik-e-Minhajul Koran chief Tahirul Qadri's long march in Islamabad.

In an alert issued by the ministry, it was said that the Pak Taliban's denial of planning to attack the January 14 march was a lie intended to mislead the public and in particular Qadri.

[ABC.NET.AU] Two Indian soldiers have been killed and one of their bodies mutilated in an apparent attack by Pak troops in the disputed region of Kashmire. It follows another cross-border clash three days ago, when Indian troops killed a Pak soldier. New Delhi says the incident is a major provocation and has vowed to respond.

[Dawn] Three people were killed in incidents of firing in Bloody Karachi...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous..., DawnNews reported on Tuesday.

Two people were killed in Orangi Town's Baloch Goth area and their bodies were shifted to the Abbasi Shahid Hospital. Police said the two were killed over a personal enmity and took four people into custody.

Moreover, unknown assailants bumped off one man in the city's Soldier Bazaar area. The man was a resident of the city's Gulbahar area.

Separately in Gulbahar, two people were maimed in an incident of firing.

Furthermore, in Bloody Karachi's Gulshan-e-Maymar area, the body of an 18-year-old girl bearing torture marks was recovered. The girl had however not yet been identified.

[Dawn] Two men, including a young banker, were rubbed out in the city in as many attacks apparently on sectarian grounds on Monday evening, police said.

They said that 24-year-old Ali Raza Naqvi was returning home from his workplace on a cycle of violence along with colleague Mohammad Rais when assailants, also riding a cycle of violence, intercepted them on main University Road near NIPA, fired at him and rode away.

While Mr Rais remained unhurt in the attack, the victim suffered three bullet wounds and was rushed to a nearby private hospital where doctors declared him dead.He's dead, Jim!on arrival.

Later, the body was taken to the Incholi Imambargah, the police said.

The victim was employed at a private bank.

A front man for the Sindh police, SSP Imran Shaukat, said that it appeared that the victim was killed on sectarian grounds.

A Muttahida Qaumi Movement...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead... statement issued on Monday night said that the victim was a worker of MQM's Labour Division (Allied Bank unit) and his killing was aimed at fomenting sectarian unrest in the city.

In two months, several persons associated with the profession of banking have been bumped off in the city.

On Jan 2, a senior banker, identified as Javed Memon, was rubbed out in the SITE area.

On Dec 20, 2012 a 50-year-old banker, Ashiq Abbas, was rubbed out in Lines Area.

In the Pak Colony area, assailants riding a cycle of violence sprayed a car with bullets on Manghopir Road within the remit of the Pak Colony cop shoppe and fled.

The car driver, 40-year-old Murtaza Alvi, suffered bullet wounds and was rushed to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where he was pronounced dead.He's dead, Jim!on arrival.

Following the medico-legal formalities at the health facility, the body was moved to the Fatimyah ghusal khana at Numaih.

The police said that the victim was associated with some hardware business and lived in Kharadar. He was heading home from work when he was targeted.

A front man for the Majlis Wahdat-e-Moslemeen strongly condemned the killings of Mr Naqvi and Alvi and said that there was no writ of law and innocent people were being killed on a daily basis in the city.

Wounded prayer leader dies

A man who suffered bullet wounds in an attack on Dec 31 in New Bloody Karachi...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... died during treatment on Monday.

Police said Mualana Shaukat Gul was the prayer leader of a mosque in Lasi Goth, New Bloody Karachi, and on Dec 31 he had gone to meet someone in Sector 5-E where he was targeted.

The police believed that he was targeted on sectarian grounds.

Truck driver rubbed out

A truck driver was rubbed out at the Northern Bypass in the early hours of Monday.

Police said that the incident took place within the remit of the Manghopir cop shoppe, where gunnies riding a cycle of violence opened fire on the truck being driven by Arif Abdul Razzak, 21.

The victim was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where he was pronounced dead.He's dead, Jim!on arrival.

Area SHO Nasir Mehmood said that the victim was a resident of North Bloody Karachi's Sector 11-D and was heading to a poultry farm. He was unmarried.

The police said that he was killed over some personal enmity and he was not affiliated with any political or religious party.

Body found in gunny bag

The body of an unidentified man, stuffed in a gunny bag, was found in Orangi Town on Monday.

Police said that the body was found in Toori Bangash Colony within the remit of the Iqbal Market cop shoppe.

The body was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where doctors said that the victim, aged around 48 years, had been strangulated. The body bore no torture marks.

Following the medico-legal formalities, the body was moved to the Edhi morgue for identification.

Man found rubbed out

The body of an unidentified man was found at a desolate place in Mehmoodabad on Monday.

An area police officer said that the at first it seemed that the body was of some drug addict who had died of cold, but a close look revealed that he had been shot in the head.

Following the medico-legal formalities, the body was taken to the Edhi morgue for a want of identification.

[An Nahar] Terror suspects killed or captured in raids last week were planning to launch attacks on tourism spots in Indonesia, national police said Tuesday.

An anti-terror police squad rubbed out seven suspects and nabbedPlease don't kill me! four others on Sulawesi and Sumbawa islands in central Indonesia last week.

"An investigation revealed that tourism spots in the town of Bima (on Sumbawa) and Tana Toraja in south Sulawesi were targets," said national police front man Boy Rafli Amar.

Tana Toraja, whose population is mainly Christian, is one of Sulawesi's most popular tourist destinations.

"We're lucky we managed to prevent the attacks from happening," he said, adding that a Bima hotel, places of worship and police offices were also targets.

Police have said the men were connected to a bully boy training camp and had been involved in killings of police in Sulawesi's Poso district, a known hotbed of bully boy activity.

In two raids on bully boy camps in Sumbawa on Saturday, police seized five pipe-bombs and materials to make bombs, such as nitrate urea powder, scores of nails and batteries.

They also rubbed out five men from the group led by the country's most-wanted terror suspect Santoso, who has allegedly trained young snuffies to launch attacks on security forces.

Two suspects were rubbed out at a university mosque Friday in southern Sulawesi.

Police have strengthened security in Poso since late last year after two coppers investigating a camp were found with their throats slit. Several small bomb plots were subsequently foiled.

Indonesia was rocked by a series of deadly terror attacks targeted at Westerners during the last decade. Most -- including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people -- were blamed on the al-Qaeda-linked group Jemaah Islamiyah.

[An Nahar] Five non-combatants were killedin heavy fighting... as opposed to the more usual light or desultory fighting... around a Paleostinian refugee camp in the Syrian capital on Tuesday as rebels withdrew from a northwestern town after a night of festivities, a watchdog said.

Meanwhile,...back at the pie fight, Bella opened her mouth at precisely the wrong moment... Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi renewed a call for opposition figures to enter into a dialogue for peace offered by Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-AssadOppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs..., despite domestic and rebel groups already rejecting the proposal.

Four of the non-combatants were killed in shelling and the fifth by a sniper as battles raged between troops and rebels near the Yarmuk refugee camp in southern Damascus...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat..., the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In Idlib province in the northwest, the army drove rebels out of Mastuma, just south of the lovely provincial capital, with the support of a "special operations battalion," a military source told Agence La Belle France Presse.

Displaced residents said troops stormed the town during the night, clashing with rebels and executing a number of residents.

They said snipers were deployed throughout the town and troops stationed in the nearby ruling Baath party camp, which the Britannia-based Observatory said was turned into a military detention center in summer 2011.

The camp is a strategic target because it contains the largest concentration of tanks in the area and sizable stores of weapons and ammunition, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Also in Idlib province, rebels shot down a helicopter as it was headed towards the Taftanaz military airbase, which remains under siege by the jihadist al-Nusra Front and Islamist Ahrar al-Sham groups, the Observatory said.

Troops still have a stranglehold on Idlib city but most of the province, which borders key opposition backer Turkey, is in the hands of turbans.

In eastern Syria, a civilian cargo plane was hit while landing at Deir Ezzor military airport as festivities raged nearby, the Observatory said.

Activists said they suspected it was carrying munitions for beleaguered troops defending the base.

The rebels now control large swathes of northern and eastern Syria and half of second city Aleppo, with the remaining isolated army outposts under rebel siege.

In other developments in the area, the Observatory said fighters from the al-Nusra Front executed three captured soldiers in Deir Ezzor city, although it could not say when.

Overall, the Observatory said 37 people died nationwide on Tuesday.

The United Nations...Parkinson's Law on an international scale... estimates more than 60,000 people have been killed since the revolt against Assad's rule erupted in March 2011.

On the political front, Information Minister Zohbi said the invitation for talks had been issued "to all opposition forces to join a dialogue based on respect for national illusory sovereignty and a rejection of foreign intervention of all kinds," state news agency SANA reported.

But he qualified that by saying the government would be contacting "all political forces and personalities that are patriotic" to take part.

The comments repeated an offer made by Assad on Sunday to hold discussions with Syria's opposition to end the conflict -- but only with elements he deemed acceptable, not rebel-affiliated groups he termed killers and forces of Evil led by foreigners.

The main, internationally recognized opposition Syrian National Coalition, based out of Cairo, immediately dismissed Assad's offer, sticking to its pre-condition that the president step down before any talks could be considered.

And the tolerated domestic opposition group, the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria, also snubbed the offer.

Western nations described as essentially empty and detached from reality Assad's speech outlining a plan to restore peace to Syria while defiantly making no compromises.

In other developments, Britannia will host a two-day meeting starting on Wednesday, officials said, bringing together academics and the opposition to prepare for a hypothetical post-Assad Syria.

"The UK's objective is to galvanize international thinking and planning on a Syrian-led political transition," a foreign office front man said.

[An Nahar] Rebels from the jihadist al-Nusra Front executed three captured soldiers in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Tuesday.

"Al-Nusra Front executed three regime troops who were captured on January 5 from the technical services building in Deir Ezzor city," the watchdog said, adding that it was not clear when, exactly, the soldiers were killed.

In a video released by the hardline group and posted to YouTube by the Observatory, the three men are seated before a black flag bearing the Moslem profession of faith and surrounded by masked men holding kalashnikovs.

They give their names and hometown while the man interrogating them identifies them as Alawites, a minority offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-AssadBefore going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... and his bigwigs belong.

One is accused of raping a young woman.

The video then showed the mangled bodies of the men lying in a ditch.

"The dogs of Assad have violated the women of Deir Ezzor, and this is what will happen to anyone who does such a thing," a man shouted from behind the camera.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that the men were captured on Saturday, but no date was given for their executed.

Al-Nusra, which first gained notoriety for its suicide kabooms in Syria, has evolved into a formidable fighting force leading attacks on battlefronts throughout the embattled country.

Its jihad boy tactics and suspected affiliation to the al-Qaeda offshoot in Iraq have landed it on the US list of terrorist organizations.

The new killings come on the heels of a UN report, which said the situation in Syria was continuing to degenerate amid a "proliferation of serious crimes including war crimes, and most probably crimes against humanity, by both sides."

A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.